Outside Lands readying return for Halloween
San Francisco’s Outside Lands Music and Arts Festival, Northern California’s premier outdoor concert, plans to return from a pandemicimposed absence this year, moving from its usual latesummer run in Golden Gate Park to a threeday event on Halloween weekend.
Another Planet Entertainment, the independent Berkeley promotion company that coproduces the festival with Superfly, is hopeful that with the long lead time, Outside Lands is going to happen after its 2020 edition was postponed.
“That gives us the most time to have the most normal festival we can have,” said Allen Scott, Another Planet’s president of concerts and festivals.
Scott told The Chronicle that his team conducts weekly calls with public health officials from the city and the state. They are also regularly in contact with the San Francisco Recreation and Park Department and the artists scheduled to perform.
“There is a lot of open dialogue,” he said. “This is an unprecedented situation.”
The news about moving the event to Oct. 2931 was announced Thursday after some media outlets reported that the festival was still scheduled to take place Aug. 68 — information based on the Outside Lands website, which had not been updated for nine months until this week.
Outside Lands has kept most of its lineup that was scheduled to perform last year — including headliners the Strokes, Lizzo and Tame Impala — but has added 16 new acts. Among them are Kaytranada, Glass Animals, Lord Huron, Brijean and Flo Milli, who will join nearly four dozen acts previously announced like Tyler, the Creator, Vampire Weekend, Kehlani, Rexx Life Raj, Zhu, Young Thug, Khruangbin, Sofi Tukker, Nelly, Brittany Howard, Angel Olsen, Sharon Van Etten and Marc Rebillet.
Whether the festival, which typically draws up to 75,000 tightly packed people a day onto the Polo Field in Golden Gate Park, can actually happen during the coronavirus pandemic will depend on several factors.
San Francisco is currently in the red tier of California’s complex reopening structure for the economy. The four tiers — purple, red, orange and yellow, from most restrictive to least — are based on a county’s daily coronavirus cases per 100,000 residents, its positive test rate and a health equity metric.
San Francisco Mayor London Breed said she expects the city to move to the orange tier on Wednesday, March 24. But she added that San Francisco would probably move at a more conservative pace than the state allows, and not all orange tier activities would resume immediately.
“We want to be careful because as we start to give people the vaccine, we also know that we’re still in this pandemic. We don’t want to go backward,” Breed said.
Under the orange tier, permanent music or sports venues can open to live outdoor audiences at 20% capacity. They must require reservations and have assigned seating and inseat concessions, and attendees must be local or traveling from within 120 miles. If the county manages to advance to the yellow tier, capacity will inch up to 25%, but the other restrictions will remain.
That would make for a very different Outside Lands experience than in previous years.
“Of course, we are hoping to do the festival at full capacity,” said Sarah Fink Dempsey, head of marketing for Another Planet. “Moving it to as late as we can in the season is to give us the best shot of getting there.”
Any county’s progress toward fewer restrictions could be jeopardized if case and positivity rates start climbing.
Festival organizers have not determined what steps, if any, they will take to screen attendees, such as requiring proof of vaccination or rapid onsite tests.
“We just can’t completely answer that because the information is not there yet,” Dempsey said. “Safety is the utmost important thing for us. As we get closer to the festival date, it will become more apparent what safety and security measures we need to implement.”
San Francisco’s acting health officer, Dr. Susan Philip, cautioned that even as rules for gatherings in the city are loosened, restrictions remain in place around singing, along with the need to wear masks and stay socially distant from other households.
“Case rates remain high, several identified virus variants pose additional risks, and there is still the possibility of another surge in cases and hospitalizations,” Philip said.
The city’s COVID Command Center told The Chronicle that public health officials are working with producers of large outdoor events to create a strategy for reopening that is consistent with state and local guidelines.
“We know that returning to an environment in which people can safely gather will be an essential aspect to our economic recovery and are working closely with these partners to develop plans that allow us to reopen these events in a manner that minimizes risk,” a spokesperson for the agency said.
Numerous studies have found that the coronavirus spreads more easily in noisy environments when people talk loudly, shout or chant because doing so releases more breath droplets into the air. Large gatherings could also pose a threat to people with chronic conditions or compromised immune systems, as well as to older people who typically attend Outside Lands for the Sunday night legacy set, which in the past has included Lionel Richie, Paul Simon and Elton John.
Another Planet is taking an optimistic approach, seeking not to take another year off as other major music festivals previously scheduled for 2021 have, including Southern California megafests Coachella and Stagecoach, and South by Southwest in Austin, Texas.
“We love Outside Lands, and our community has been telling us that they want Outside Lands this year,” Scott said. “We not only want, it but we need it. We need a place to celebrate after what’s been going on for the last year.”
Fans throughout the Bay Area and beyond expressed excitement and skepticism about the return of the festival. While some thought it was too soon to plan a large concert and that it would probably turn into a superspreader event, others like San Francisco resident Scott Patterson say it brings hope for a return to normalcy.
As the founder of Tumble, a smart laundry service in the Bay Area, Patterson said he has seen an influx of new clients in San Francisco in the past week, signaling that people are returning to the city and getting back to their routines.
“By October, I don’t think anyone will even consider corona anymore because everyone will be vaccinated,” said Patterson, who bought tickets Thursday.
There’s also the possibility, after the success of last August’s twoday virtual Inside Lands concert, the promoters will provide a streaming option for 2021’s Outside Lands. But those plans are still in the works, Scott said.
In the meantime, the Outside Lands promoters are also planning to bring the Life Is Beautiful festival back to Las Vegas, where the reopening restrictions are looser, on Sept. 1719 with headliners Billie Eilish, Green Day and Tame Impala .
In Northern California, the fall music festival calendar also includes BottleRock Napa Valley, a threeday outdoor concert that was postponed several times last year and is now set for Labor Day weekend, Sept. 35, at the Napa Valley Expo in downtown Napa.
It is uncertain whether last year’s scheduled BottleRock headliners — Red Hot Chili Peppers, Dave Matthews Band and Stevie Nicks — will be on the bill for the new dates. A spokesperson said an updated lineup is forthcoming.
The Aftershock music festival in Sacramento is scheduled on Oct. 710 with headliners Metallica, My Chemical Romance and Limp Bizkit.
Tickets for Outside Lands’ new dates are now available. Anyone who bought the Eager Beaver pass for last year or for the previously scheduled 2021 dates can use them in October. Those who prefer refunds can submit a request via the Outside Lands website until April 17.